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View Full Version : Sharpton: Rush Limbaughh has no right to free speech on publicly regulated airwaves.




johnwk
12-07-2010, 08:11 AM
SEE: Sharpton to meet with FCC in effort to censor Limbaugh (http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2010/dec/7/sharpton-meet-fcc-effort-censor-limbaugh/)


"Rush Limbaugh has the right to say whatever he wants to say, he does not have the right, though, to do it on publicly regulated airwaves. The FCC has the responsibility to set standards," Sharpton added.


Let’s get one thing straight. They are not “public airwaves”. They are used by the public but are not “public airwaves” in the sense that Congress has been granted a power to regulate them. Congress has never been granted power to regulate radio transmissions, and until the people have given their consent under Article 5 of our Constitution, by which a power is intentionally granted to Congress to regulate the “airwaves”, Congress has no power to delegate authority to the FCC to meddle in the transmission of radio waves.

The limited powers of our federal government were summarized as follows:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.

The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.” FEDERALIST NO 45


And, these words were given force and effect by the adoption of our Constitution’s Tenth Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.


And if the above evidence is not sufficient our very own Supreme Court confirmed the defined and limited powers of our federal government:

“The government of the United States is of the latter description. The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing; if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the constitution by an ordinary act.

Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.

If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.

Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void.” ____ MARBURY v. MADISON, 5 U.S. 137 (1803)


Sharpton and his PROGRESSIVE DOMESTIC ENEMY CROWD (http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?ContentID=166&ParentID=0&SectionID=4&SectionTree=4&lnk=b&ItemID=164) need to start obeying our written Constitution or receive some well deserved PUNISHMENT (http://www.imageenvision.com/illustration/1775-the-bostonians-paying-the-exciseman-or-tarring-and-feathering-by-jvpd)

JWK



"The Constitution is the act of the people, speaking in their original character, and defining the permanent conditions of the social alliance; and there can be no doubt on the point with us, that every act of the legislative power contrary to the true intent and meaning of the Constitution, is absolutely null and void. ___ Chancellor James Kent, in his Commentaries on American Law (1858)

BuddyRey
12-07-2010, 11:11 AM
Sharpton's a disingenuous tool. Does he not realize that "public ownership" was once a favorite excuse of racists and bigots to suppress the rights of speech, assembly, and press for racial minorities?

Vessol
12-07-2010, 11:14 AM
Sharpton: Freedom of the Press is Racist!

CharlesTX
12-07-2010, 11:15 AM
I love to be entertained by the people who rationalize their hypocrisy.

specsaregood
12-07-2010, 11:18 AM
Sharpton's a disingenuous tool. Does he not realize that "public ownership" was once a favorite excuse of racists and bigots to suppress the rights of speech, assembly, and press for racial minorities?

I'm pretty sure he does and fondly dreams for those days to return.

Jordan
12-07-2010, 11:28 AM
I'm pretty sure he does and fondly dreams for those days to return.

So true.

Cowlesy
12-07-2010, 11:31 AM
I'm pretty sure he does and fondly dreams for those days to return.

probably made more $$$ those days.

Lucille
12-07-2010, 11:37 AM
Rush gets the First Amendment-hating, fascist government he deserves.

Consider it instant karma for railing against wikileaks.

specsaregood
12-07-2010, 11:44 AM
probably made more $$$ those days.

Yeah, must be tought to be a race pimp when little white boys and girls are sitting in the same classes as black boys and girls. on the same teams... when little white boys idolize black popstars, atheletes and actors.

on a sidenote IIRC I heard on the radio 2 weeks ago about sharptons group owing over a million in taxes and hadn't paid payroll taxes in years.....

johnwk
12-07-2010, 02:14 PM
I love to be entertained by the people who rationalize their hypocrisy.



Just like Senator John RINO McCain and his McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act ___ more appropriately dubbed the incumbent full employment act ___ designed to infringe upon freedom of political speech and preclude the American people‘s right, and especially preclude right to life groups, from airing political ads which mentioned the name of a member of Congress and their voting record 60 days before an election. What part of shall make no law which is found in our Constitution do these dirt bags not understand?

JWK

freshjiva
12-07-2010, 02:32 PM
i love to be entertained by the people who rationalize their hypocrisy.

+1 :d

Tennanja
12-07-2010, 04:11 PM
Ok I'll say it Sharpton has no right to free speech on publicly regulated airways.

j/k

I'm probably racist because i turned it around.

(I don't really believe this, everyone can say whatever they want IMO no matter whether its publicly regulated or not)

oyarde
12-07-2010, 04:22 PM
Sharpton ....... ha ha ha ha

LibForestPaul
12-07-2010, 05:12 PM
Sharpton is correct. They are public airways.

JoshLowry
12-07-2010, 05:24 PM
Rush Limbaugh has the right to say whatever he wants to say, he does not have the right, though, to do it on publicly regulated airwaves.

What happens to the internet when it becomes publicly regulated?

mczerone
12-07-2010, 06:04 PM
Sharpton is correct. They are public airways.

1. Lets assume they are "public airways". Then wouldn't that mean that the gov't, as steward of the airwaves, would have the utmost responsibility to rule according to the Constitution, and would be unable to limit speech?

2. Why should they be "public" airwaves anyway? Aren't they a scarce resource, and susceptible to the norms of private property? Oh right - they were until the gov't felt the need to nationalize them due to some faulty "public goods" argument that seems to apply to anything the gov't wants to get their paws on.

Sharpton is wrong on a number of levels, but I'd expect nothing more from him.

Heimdallr
12-07-2010, 06:15 PM
Rush gets the First Amendment-hating, fascist government he deserves.

Consider it instant karma for railing against wikileaks.

Word. Very karmatic. Lots of kar-mosity.

He deserves it. Let's hope the fella changes his position and wakes the hell up.

johnwk
12-07-2010, 07:36 PM
I see a lot of attention has been paid to Al Sharpton in the thread, but the important part of what he stated seems to have gone unnoticed:

"Rush Limbaugh has the right to say whatever he wants to say, he does not have the right, though, to do it on publicly regulated airwaves. The FCC has the responsibility to set standards," .

“The FCC has the responsibility to set standards" is what we should be concerned with because the real enemy here is not Al Sharpton, but rather, Mark Lloyd, the FCC's chief diversity officer appointed by Julius Genachowski who heads the Federal Communications Commission and is a longtime friend of Obama!

In 2007 Mark Lloyd wrote: Forget the Fairness Doctrine (http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/07/lloyd_fairness.html), and those who read the article will immediately realize Al Sharpton is not the threat. But Mark Lloyd and Julius Genachowski are a threat, and Sharpton merely indicated they have the responsibility to set “standards” for the airwaves.

But do these un-elected political appointees have power to “set standards” for the airwaves, especially when Mark Lloyd thinks in terms of “right-wing talk radio and their echo chambers in the conservative blogosphere and Fox News”?

The fact is ___ and every freedom loving person who supports our constitutionally limited system of government must always keep this in mind ___ under the fundamental rules of constitutional law Congress may not delegate its essential lawmaking powers to establish principles, standards, or general public policy! And the president’s powers are extremely limited as defined in our written Constitution.


Keep in mind that “all” legislative [law making] power is vested in Congress, and for our president or an un-elected presidential appointee to attempt to set “standards“, is not only usurping a power, it would be a circumvention of the separation of powers written into our Constitution and be nothing less than a despotic attack upon our Constitution’s guarantee to a “Republican Form of Government” [see art. 4, sec. 4] in which each State’s elected Representatives and Senators who are solely vested with the law making power, are to debate such issues and then enact law should new law be found necessary to deal with a new circumstances.

But in this case, regarding the “airwaves”, not even Congress has been granted a power to regulate the specific subject matter mentioned!


JWK

America, we have a problem, we have been attacked from within! We are being destroyed from within by a group of DOMESTIC ENEMIES (http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?ContentID=166&ParentID=0&SectionID=4&SectionTree=4&lnk=b&ItemID=164)who have managed to seize political power and whose mission is in fact to bring “change” to America ___ the dismantling of our military defensive power; the allowance of our borders to be overrun by foreign invaders, the diluting of our election process by allowing ineligible persons to vote; the destruction of our manufacturing capabilities; the strangulation of our agricultural industry and ability to produce food under the guise of environmental necessity; the destruction of our nation’s health care delivery system, the looting of both our federal treasury and a mandatory retirement pension fund; the brainwashing of our nation’s children in government operated schools; the trashing of our nation’s traditions and moral values; the creation of an iron fisted control unauthorized by our written Constitution over America’s businesses and industries; the devaluation of our nation’s currency, and, the future enslavement of our children and grand children via unbridled debt and inflation, not to mention an iron fisted government which intends to rule their very lives!